THE PYRAMID OF TIRANA

JOSEPH GIAMPIETRO

BUILDINGS

OBJECTS

PHOTOGRAPHS

SOUNDS

WRITINGS

INFORMATION

This project explores concepts of bigness, blackness, and blankness and how those ideas pertain to contextual relationships.

Bigness – the Pyramid of Tirana is big. It is big in its iconography more so than it is in its sheer physicality. If realism is to be viewed as a cultural construct, than the pyramid of Tirana’s actual size is arguably immeasurable as its perception is truly unique to each individual. Blackness – The inability to define or register information as it is presented to you. The additions made to the pyramid are black objects in that they give minimal amounts information or refuse to allude to what it is that they contain, their function, or their value/meaning. Blankness – The Pyramid of Tirana is blank in its ambivalent relationship towards its immediate physical context. Because the pyramid is inherently an introverted building, its real qualities are portrayed by its aesthetics.

Realism in this case, calls attention to the differences and tensions between reality and its representation, moments which aesthetics redistribute sensible information within the pyramid and its represented context. Through recontextualization, the pyramid is liberated of categorization and can be seen as a means to transgress typical distinctions thus giving the project the ability to be viewed free of preconditioned conventions. This leads to the question of identity in that by estranging the object from certain expectations and contexts, does it remain the same object? The images and drawings that represent the project are to be viewed as individual objects themselves, each representing real qualities of the project and at times allowing for varying degrees of disconnection from the pyramid itself.

THE PYRAMID OF TIRANA

TIRANA, ALBANIA

UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA

CRITIC. JASON PAYNE

2015

SUCKERPUNCHDAILY